Over this semester in Composition 101, I have to honestly say that I do not think that my writing has changed a very large amount, or maybe even at all. I would say that many factors contributed to this, however I think the main ones are that throughout the semester I got progressively busier and did not focus as much on improving my writing, I became more and more apathetic and careless as a result of this, and sometimes I think I just did not understand the assignments or try hard enough to understand them. All of these added to my inhibited growth as a writer this semester.
First of all, I did not focus on my writing as much because I believe that I took on too much as a student this semester. This is not exactly an excuse; however for me personally that is just one of the reasons my writing hasn’t improved as much as I had hoped it would. I think that at the beginning of this semester I started off strong, and did well with the first assignment, the "I Am Who I Am” piece. I truly thought about this assignment and spent a lot of time on it; I put a lot of effort into planning that assignment, and full participated in the writing group meetings. Also, in the beginning I think that I faithfully kept up with my daybook and made sure everything was in it. Even with the second piece, the group piece about presentation tools, I thought that I contributed as well as I could, although I think that I misunderstood the directions. However, then all of my other many classes started flooding assignments in as well, and I did not respond well to it all and did not balance everything well. Some classes started to take priority over others for certain assignments, and I was always just trying to get assignments done rather than focusing on improving my writing with each one.
Secondly, because I was simply trying to get my assignments finished, I began to get more careless as well: turning in assignments unfinished and just following instructions to the bare minimum which did not contribute to making my writing better at all. Also, along with this I think there were some assignments that I did not fully understand. For example, the rhetorical analysis essay; I was so incredibly confused about this assignment that I still am not sure how exactly I was supposed to write it, and I still do not fully understand “ethos, pathos, logos.” I feel that I did not respond well to this either. Sometimes if I have a difficult assignment that I do not understand, I get frustrated and do not want to have to try really hard to figure it out, which is not an acceptable way to behave. Even in my other classes, I do not think I did very well with taking responsibility for my own learning. If I ran into a problem where I was confused or did not know how to continue with an assignment or particular subject, I did not utilize the services available to me such as tutoring or the Writing Center, and I was apprehensive about approaching my professors outside of class. Once again, none of these reasons are really excuses, they are just simply the truthful reasons I do not think my writing has changed or improved much over the course of the semester.
Secondly, because I was simply trying to get my assignments finished, I began to get more careless as well: turning in assignments unfinished and just following instructions to the bare minimum which did not contribute to making my writing better at all. Also, along with this I think there were some assignments that I did not fully understand. For example, the rhetorical analysis essay; I was so incredibly confused about this assignment that I still am not sure how exactly I was supposed to write it, and I still do not fully understand “ethos, pathos, logos.” I feel that I did not respond well to this either. Sometimes if I have a difficult assignment that I do not understand, I get frustrated and do not want to have to try really hard to figure it out, which is not an acceptable way to behave. Even in my other classes, I do not think I did very well with taking responsibility for my own learning. If I ran into a problem where I was confused or did not know how to continue with an assignment or particular subject, I did not utilize the services available to me such as tutoring or the Writing Center, and I was apprehensive about approaching my professors outside of class. Once again, none of these reasons are really excuses, they are just simply the truthful reasons I do not think my writing has changed or improved much over the course of the semester.
In conclusion, it is with regret that I say overall, my individual writing has improved little to none during this course. My coursework overload and my own apathy have caused me to be careless and inattentive, which has not aided in my improvement as a student. However, that is not to say that I have not learned anything from this experience; I now know my strengths and weaknesses as a student, and have some idea of how to balance my time more efficiently as I now know what does not work and what does work. I also know now that I need to allow myself more time to effectively complete my assignments and to actually gain and retain knowledge and information from all of my courses, not just the composition ones. I think that I have learned from my mistakes this semester and will be able to apply this knowledge to next semester and the semesters ahead. Also, I think that I did my best to revise the pieces I chose for my portfolio.
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